


the bare minimum

by viscrael



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Anxiety, Kind of Hurt/Comfort, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Panic Attacks, Pre-Relationship, tsukki wanting to help but not knowing how
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-03 23:33:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13351824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viscrael/pseuds/viscrael
Summary: “It’s not your fault.” There’s a sound on the other side like Yamaguchi rolling over in his bed, sheets rustling. After a moment, he says, his voice gentler than earlier, “Thank you for...letting me talk, and for picking up at all. It helped.”“I didn’t really do anything,” Kei protests.“You listened.”





	the bare minimum

**Author's Note:**

> i set out to write a small fluffy hurt/comfort thing and ended up writing abt the struggle of wanting to help a mentally ill loved one but not knowing how or sometimes not even having the tools to help
> 
> anyway. when will i ever stop writing abt anxiety and late phone calls with these 2. the answer is probably never
> 
> unrelated to this fic hello haikyuu fandom ive misst u so gotdamn much? i love haikyuu?? so much??? and im so sad that im not as invested in it as i used to be and that im not writing multichap fics for it anymore bc those were literally always so much fun and so refreshing and fulfilling and i always felt so connected to a community and so appreciated when i was writing like weekly for hq. i RLLY wanna get back into that and start up another longer fic for either tsukyams or kagehina but im a senior in high school and so close to graduation and so busy with life that its been ridiculously difficult to find the time or motivation to sit down and write long works :(  
> all that to say that i might actually start another multichapter sometime soon. so keep an eye out for that if u want to idk

At four o’clock on a Thursday morning, Kei wakes up to his phone ringing.

He tries to ignore the sound and keep sleeping, but Kei has never been a particularly heavy sleeper. When even the lightest talking can disturb him, it’s difficult to just tune out the loud, blaring jingle he has set for his ring tone. After a moment of floating back into consciousness, Kei notices something important about the tone, however: it’s the one he has set for Yamaguchi.

The knowledge pulls him into full consciousness, his confusion making him sit up halfway. He grabs his phone from his bedside table before sliding the green _Answer_ button and holding it up to his ear. Quietly, so that he doesn’t wake anyone else in the house, he says, “Yamaguchi?”

“Tsukki,” Yamaguchi responds. “You answered.”

Kei frowns and sits up all the way, shuffling his covers around him. Yamaguchi’s voice sounds...odd. “Of course I answered. You called, didn’t you?”

“I guess I did.”

“What’s wrong?”

There’s a long moment of silence from the other end, and it drives Kei into anxiety. Still in the dark, he fumbles for his glasses on his bedside table and leans to switch the light on. “Yamaguchi,” he says a little more urgently, because Yamaguchi still hasn’t responded, and this, along with calling at this hour, is out of character and more than a little worrying. He _never_ calls without a reason. “Yamaguchi.”

“Sorry, I’m—I’m here,” he stutters to apologize. “Sorry. I’m—Tsukki...”

“Yamaguchi, you’re freaking me out,” Kei admits.

“I know, I’m not trying to, I’m just—“ He takes a loud, shuddering breath, unable to finish the sentence, and there’s that silence again, grating and indecipherable and infinite. Kei sits there for a moment, listening to Yamaguchi take labored, uneven breaths, the kinds that he knows mean Yamaguchi is freaking out over something, before deciding something.

He gets out of bed. “I’m coming over to your place.”

“What?”

“I said I’m on my way over.”

“No, Tsukki, you don’t have to do that—”

“You’re upset about something,” he interrupts.

“That doesn’t mean you need to drive all the way to my house!”

Kei searches the room for his shoes and doesn’t point out that the drive between their houses is only ten minutes—plus, since it’s early in the morning and no one else will be around, he could get there in around seven while speeding. It’s not exactly out of his way.

“Well, you won’t tell me what’s wrong,” he says, finally spotting his shoes and grabbing them, “but clearly something is if you’re up and calling me at ungodly hours in the morning.” _I can_ _’_ _t just_ not _help you when you_ _’_ _re clearly about to break down,_ he doesn’t say, but he hopes it’s implied, or at least that Yamaguchi understands the sentiment.

“I’ll tell you what’s wrong, just—please don’t come all the way here,” Yamaguchi begs. The genuine distress in his voice at the prospect of Kei coming over is enough to make Kei pause where he’s lacing up his shoes.

“Okay,” Kei says slowly. “Then tell me.”

“I’m just—” Yamaguchi pauses again, taking a breath. In a rush, he explains, “I had a really bad dream and I was having a panic attack about it and I couldn’t...I didn’t know what else to do. My parents aren’t home and I figured—I figured I could call you and it would calm me down. I’m...” His voice lowers to a mumble. “I’m sorry. I guess I wasn’t thinking about how scary it is to get a call like that this late. I shouldn’t have bothered.”

“No,” Kei says, then realizes that could be interpreted as _no, you_ _’_ _re right, you shouldn_ _’_ _t have called_ , so he continues, “Don’t be hard on yourself about it. That won’t help anything.”

“I know,” Yamaguchi mumbles. He still doesn’t sound any calmer than he did earlier; he just sounds almost self-deprecating on top of it now. Kei wracks his brain for a way to shut that down before it gets out of hand, but he can hardly think of how to handle the situation with the dream, so he doesn’t say anything else about it. Instead, he takes his shoes back off and stays where he’s sitting on his bedroom floor, scooting back so he can lean against the side of his bed.

“Tell me about the dream,” he says. Belatedly, he adds, “If that will help.”

Yamaguchi doesn’t answer if it will help him or not, but launches into a vague retelling of the dream anyway. It involved an unexpected amount of animal death and acquaintances going missing, which were scenarios Kei hadn’t realized Yamaguchi had any particular fear of. The individual events of the dream didn’t seem all that horrible on their own, but Kei can imagine how much worse they would be stitched together, side-by-side with no way of stopping them. The way Yamaguchi describes it, it seems unsettling—the kind of bad dream that doesn’t leave you shaking and crying, but that means you wake up in a sort of fugue state. Maybe to most people that wouldn’t warrant the kind of response that Yamaguchi had, but Kei knows how he can’t handle that, the feeling of unreality. He’s told Kei before about moments when he drifted away and was pulled back only by an anxiety attack—which, despite their relative frequency, are Yamaguchi’s least favorite things to deal with. It makes sense that he would freak out when he woke up.

Kei stays silent during the story, only listening. He picks at a loose strand on the rug he’s sitting on and struggles to come up with something adequate to say once Yamaguchi is finished. “I’m sorry,” is all he comes up with. It feels lame, useless, but it’s the best he has in terms of consolation. If they were together in person, Kei might actually know how to help, if only because of years of witnessing Yamaguchi during times like these. But since they aren’t, he’s instead left floundering for something useful to do.

“It’s not your fault.” There’s a sound on the other side like Yamaguchi rolling over in his bed, sheets rustling. After a moment, he says, his voice gentler than earlier, “Thank you for...letting me talk, and for picking up at all. It helped.”

“I didn’t really do anything,” Kei protests.

“You listened.”

“Yeah, but that’s not...” _enough_ , he wants to say. _I should be able to do more for you when you_ _’_ _re upset. You_ _’_ _re my best friend. I shouldn_ _’_ _t just be sitting here like an idiot with nothing else to say._

“Just knowing you’re listening helps,” Yamaguchi insists. “And I’m sorry again for freaking you out. I...I’ve calmed down now. I just needed to hear—...um, to know that you’re there.”

_Of course I_ _’_ _m here_ , Kei almost says. _Don_ _’_ _t thank me for the bare minimum._ And it really is the bare minimum. If he could, he would already be at Yamaguchi’s house, and then he would know how to best handle this. If only Yamaguchi hadn’t insisted Kei stay home, he’d be in Yamaguchi’s bedroom by now, lying down with him to help him go back to sleep or to make him feel safer in the empty house, or maybe cooking an early breakfast or watching something on TV in the living room to distract Yamaguchi before they have to head off to school. There are a million better ways he can think of to help Yamaguchi right now other than just sitting here and occasionally saying something dumb in a poor attempt to comfort.

“Right,” is what Kei ends up saying.

“Jesus Christ, it’s late,” Yamaguchi notices. When Kei glances at his bedside clock, he sees that it’s almost a quarter ‘til five. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow at school—or, well, I guess later today.”

“Yeah, at school.”

“Sorry again for keeping you up so late, Tsukki.”

“It’s fine,” Kei says, meaning it. “Hey, Yamaguchi.”

“Yeah?”

“You know you can call me like this whenever you want, right?”

There’s a moment before Yamaguchi responds, during which Kei mentally whacks himself over the head, afraid that somehow he’d upset Yamaguchi or said something really dumb. But Yamaguchi just says, sounding in much better spirits than earlier, “I know, Tsukki. And thank you. ‘Night.”

“Good night.”

Yamaguchi hangs up, but Kei still sits there, the phone pressed to his ear, feeling something on the tip of his tongue that won’t quite come out.

**Author's Note:**

> he wants to say i love u but doesnt know how which like bih me 2 the fuck


End file.
